Whereabouts of Khashoggi’s body raises questions

ISTANBUL (AA) – The whereabouts of Jamal Khashoggi’s body has become a pressing question after Saudi Arabia admitted that the veteran journalist had died during a “brawl” at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

“Where is the body of Jamal Khashoggi?” Syrian journalist Musa al-Omar asked.

“He should be buried in Al-Baqi’ [a cemetery in Madinah in western Saudi Arabia] as recommended."

Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and columnist for The Washington Post, had gone missing since entering the consulate on Oct. 2.

After days of denying to know his whereabouts, Saudi Arabia on Saturday claimed Khashoggi was killed during a fight inside the consulate.

Roger Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times, scoffed at the Saudi explanation on the circumstances of Khashoggi's killing.

“Strangled in “a fistfight”?? 15 agents sent to “meet him”?? One of them with a saw??” Oh, and didn’t Khashoggi walk out the consulate 17 days ago?? He wondered.

“If [U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo was sent to Riyadh to cobble together a plausible story, well, mission failed,” he said.

On Tuesday, Pompeo visited Riyadh for talks with Saudi officials on Khashoggi’s disappearance.

On the day of Khashoggi’s disappearance, 15 other Saudis, including several officials, arrived in Istanbul on two planes and visited the consulate while he was still inside, according to Turkish police sources. All of the identified individuals have since left Turkey.

A joint Turkish-Saudi team completed an investigation into the case on Thursday after searching the residence of the consul general as well as the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

- “Where is the body?”

Several Arab journalists raised the questions about the Saudi journalist’s body.

“He died as a result of a fistfight, where is the body of Jamal Khashoggi?" Lebanese journalist Najla Abu Mari asked.

Yemeni journalist Hamdi al-Bakari tweeted "Where is his body?"

Bahraini journalist Nazih Saeed also asked about Khashoggi’s body, saying the dismissal of officials was "not enough to achieve justice."

Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman was sarcastic about the Saudi king’s decision to dismiss the deputy intelligence chief Ahmad Asiri and senior adviser Saud al-Qahtani over the case.

"We can understand your dismissal [King Salman] of them in this way: for their failure to oversee the assassination of Khashoggi without scandals,” she wrote on Twitter.

There was no comment from Saudi authorities on the allegation.

Emirati political analyst Abdul Khaliq Abdullah said on Twitter: "May Allah have mercy on the champion of freedom Khashoggi."

"This is a sad day for me, for his friends, family, the liberals of the world and for anyone who courageously dared to say the truth and fight the battle of freedom and pay costly for it," Abdullah said.

Egyptian academic Saif al-Din Abdul Fattah asked about the whereabouts of the Saudi journalist’s body.

"Why did the Saudi authorities deny more than once that Khashoggi was murdered? Where was the man's body?" he asked.

Egyptian political activist Wael Ghonim said on Twitter "the remembrance of Khashoggi’s martyrdom will live in the hearts and minds of many believers in humanity all over the world."

"I knew him a noble knight, loved his country and suffered so much from being away from his homeland,” he said, going on to call on Saudi Arabia to bring perpetrators and planners of the “brutal crime” to justice.